Singled Out: State of Illusion's Blind

State of Illusion recently released a music video for their latest single "Blind," which comes from their "Aphelion" album. To celebrate we asked Jacob Porter (Vocals/Guitar) to tell us about the track. Here is the story:

"The story of 'Blind' is the story of a bunch of tiny changes over the years creating something that still feels new and something we are really proud of. I wrote the entirety of 'Blind' in the middle of the night in late 2007 or early 2008, sitting on the floor in front of my amp. I really loved that the clean guitar and heavy parts were kind of warring with each other, sort of like a calm vs. storm scenario. The melody and lyrics just came out. The next day, I demoed the song (and played the drums horribly) and the guys were into it. We recorded the song at home and used it as a single back then.

In 2009, we decided to record some songs with someone else in the engineer's chair and decided that 'Blind' was too good of a song to not record the right way. During this session, the engineer pitched a new chorus melody idea that we tried but, ultimately, I wasn't really interested in. Things got a little tense and he told us that, by rewriting the melody, he was 'just trying to make [our] song good.' We ended up tracking it the original way but it definitely makes me think of what could have been and encourages me to try all good ideas but, at the end of the day, don't change just because of someone else's opinion.

Fast forward to a fresh 2012 band line-up preparing to record a new album. Because the 2009 version of 'Blind' never made it to an album, we decided to keep the great sounding drum tracks, clean guitars, and some of the vocals and re-track everything else. At this point, we added the vocal harmonies in the chorus and the dual guitar solo and released it on our album, Aphelion, in 2014.

Finally, between another personnel change to the line-up we have now, we decided to shoot a music video to gain a bit of momentum before heading back into the studio. As if we hadn't used 'Blind' enough, we all agreed that the world needed to hear it and it hadn't traveled far enough yet, so we decided to, yet again, re-tool the song. We re-recorded most of the vocals, all of the guitars except for the solos and cleans, and updated the lyrics to reflect where we are personally today. The final version collects little snippets from most of the band members we've had throughout the years, so it's just a really cool way to showcase the song and still energizes us all these years later.

The music video is about a girl who is being hunted by a surreal force because she's the last creature that can see beauty in the world. The problem is that, through seeing beauty, the evil force's attacks are more potent, so her only defense is the blindfold that she wears. So, in the end, her only way to survive is by becoming blind to the beauty of the world."

Hearing is believing. Now that you know the story behind the song, listen and watch for yourself here and learn more about the albumright here!